It's hilarious how misleading the conventional pop music history can be. Any journalist or rock historian would tell you that the dominant middle finger in the punk year of 1976 was raised by the Sex Pistols who came out of nowhere, shocked the UK and pretty much vanished within a year, leaving behind a huge myth, energized youth, a very rich manager and a few dead bodies. Malcolm McLaren may have steered the Sex Pistols from one scandal and record company disaster to another, but he was actually playing it safe, being fully aware that each piece of negative PR would in the long run fatten his, and the band's, wallet.
The brand new documentary
Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage puts things into correct perspective and reveals the three then long-haired Canadians the true anarchists of 1976. There's a wonderful sequence in the film, detailing the sudden rise the band enjoyed with
Fly By Night and the subsequent nosedive of
Caress of Steel less than a year later, in 1975. When going in to record their 4th album, both the record company and even their loyal manager Ray Danniels demanded they go for "more commercial sound, singles and short songs."
Their response was basically "f*** them all". As they say in the interviews made for the film, they decided to do the record 100% their way, go for their own vision one last time, and when the album bombs in the charts and Mercury Records fires them, they can go back to their boring old jobs proud, not having given in one inch.
The album was, of course,
2112, and as Neil Peart says in the movie, "it was carte blanche for us after that - no one could come up to us and say we should do something differently."
In the official truths of rock, Rush have been considered the polite, reclusive conservatives and Sex Pistols the anarchists and DIY flagbearers. Like many other official truths, this one should just leave. And do see the movie: even if you didn't care for the band, their story is unique and well worth telling the world.
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